Friday, October 2, 2009
Second World War: The Eastern Front: Barbarossa. Stalingrad. Atlantic Wall. In pictures
0 comments Posted by org at 7:08 AM
June 1941. German tanks before the attack into Russia.In the summer of 1941, the Third Reich was at the apex of its power. After the defeat of Poland in September 1939, German troops had engaged in a series of spectacular blitzkrieg offensives against Denmark, Norway, the Benelux countries, and France, occupying almost the whole of Western Europe. In Eastern Europe, the Nazi regime was allied with Romania, Hungary, and Bulgaria, and in the spring of 1941 it conquered Yugoslavia and Greece. Hitler thought the time for "Europe's crusade against Bolshevism" had come. For the June 22, 1941, attack on the Soviet Union, Hitler assembled an invading force of unprecedented size. In addition to 3.6 million German and allied soldiers, about 600,000 motor vehicles, 3,600 tanks, 7,200 artillery pieces, and 2,700 warplanes were deployment in the invasion. This photograph shows a unit of German tanks before their deployment; in the background, we see the bombardment of Sluk.
WHY DID HITLER ATTACK RUSSIA AND SPARE BRITAIN? (From the BBC)In the summer of 1940 Adolf Hitler, despite his swift and dramatic victory over France, faced a major military and political problem. The British would not do what seemed logical and what the Führer expected - they would not make peace. Yet Hitler was frustrated by geography - in the shape of the English Channel - from following his immediate instincts and swiftly crushing the British just as he had the French.Hitler did in fact order preparations to be made for an invasion of England, but he was always half-hearted in his desire to mount a large seaborne landing. Germany, unlike Britain, was not a sea power and the Channel was a formidable obstacle. Even if air superiority could be gained, there remained the powerful British Navy. And there was another, ideological, reason why Hitler was not fully committed to invading Britain. For him, it would have been a distraction. Britain contained neither the space, nor the raw materials, that he believed the new German Empire needed. And he admired the British - Hitler often remarked how much he envied their achievement in subjugating India.Worse, if the Germans let themselves be drawn into a risky amphibious operation against a country Hitler had never wanted as an enemy, every day the potential threat from his greatest ideological opponent would be growing stronger. (It was just ironic that he was not yet at war with this perceived enemy, since in August 1939 Germany and the Soviet Union had signed a Non-Aggression Pact.)All this meant that, from Hitler's point of view, there was an alternative to invading Britain: he could invade the Soviet Union. Both Hitler and his military planners knew that Germany's best chance of victory was for the war in Europe to be finished swiftly.Hubert Menzel was a major in the General Operations Department of the OKH (the Oberkommando des Heers, the German Army headquarters), and for him the idea of invading the Soviet Union in 1941 had the smack of cold, clear logic to it: 'We knew that in two years' time, that is by the end of 1942, beginning of 1943, the English would be ready, the Americans would be ready, the Russians would be ready too, and then we would have to deal with all three of them at the same time.... We had to try to remove the greatest threat from the East.... At the time it seemed possible.' (The above paragraphs are taken from chapter one of 'War of the Century' by Laurence Rees, published by BBC Publications, 1999.)
December 1941. A German tank stuck in the Russian snow. Prior to the invasion of the Soviet Union, Hitler’s army had won a number of quick military victories. The campaign in the East, however, was a disaster for the Wehrmacht and proved to be a turning point in the war. Strategic mistakes, inadequate supplies for troops, and insufficient equipment all contributed to the German defeat on the Eastern Front. In many areas, German military equipment was not suited to the Soviet Union’s climate and ground conditions, especially in the winter months. This image shows a German type IV tank (in snow camouflage) stuck in the snow. While soldiers attempt to free the tank with shovels and pickaxes, a war correspondent (far right) captures photographs the scene.
Hitler invades Russia ( From the BBC)
Germans invaded the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, and looked poised to take Moscow by October that year. With the benefit of hindsight, popular opinion has labelled Hitler as virtually insane for invading the Soviet Union, but at the time many people - including those influential in both Britain and America - thought his decision was a sound one. Indeed, Hitler came much closer to pulling off his grand plan than the Soviet Union was ever prepared to admit.The German Blitzkrieg technique was as devastating in Russia as it had been in the rest of Europe. The scene was set for a war of annihilation waged by the Nazis against the Soviets with no mercy shown by either side. One week into the German invasion, 150,000 Soviet soldiers were either dead or wounded - more than during the five months of the Battle of the Somme.As the German armies swept further into the Russian heartland, one million Soviet troops were drafted to protect Kiev. But despite Stalin's ruthless order forbidding any city to surrender, Kiev fell and 600,000 Soviet soldiers were captured. By October 1941, three million Soviet soldiers were prisoners of war. New testimony and documentary evidence can now reveal that Stalin was seriously considering suing for peace and had even organised a 'getaway' train to take him to safety as German guns started pounding Moscow. His decision to stay and fight was a crucial turning point in the war.
October, 1942. A German anti-tank unit on a Stalingrad street.Hitler’s Directive No. 45 of July 23, 1942, revised the original plan of the German summer offensive in southern Russia. According to the directive, the offensives in Stalingrad and the Caucasus were equally important and would be pursued simultaneously. Army Group A [Heeresgruppe A] was to occupy the oil fields of the Caucasus, while Army Group B [Heeresgruppe B] was to conquer Stalingrad, an important industrial city and rail hub on the Volga River. In 1940, Stalingrad (named Zarizyn until 1925, and Volgograd since 1961) had a population of 450,000. The battle for Stalingrad began on August 19, 1942; on August 23, the 6th Army, under the leadership of General Friedrich Paulus, was ordered to take the city. Bitter fighting ensued and losses were extraordinarily high. The battle for Stalingrad lasted until February 2, 1943, ending in a crushing German defeat.
Soviet POWs. 1942. German treatment of POWs varied greatly and was largely determined by the nationality of their captives. Soviet POWs suffered the worst fate, since National Socialist racial policy held that the “Eastern races” were inferior, and since fighting Bolshevism was among the goals of Nazi political ideology. Soviet POWs were kept in makeshift camps without sufficient food, medical care, or protection from harsh weather conditions. Thousands of prisoners were used as forced laborers in the armaments industry and at mining sites. More than 3 million Soviet POWs died in German prison camps. This photograph was taken at a POW camp in Charkov (Ukraine).
1943. Soviet partisans hanged to deter others by the Germans. With the attack on the Soviet Union, the Nazi campaign assumed its full scope as a racial-ideological war of annihilation of unprecedented brutality and barbarity. The Wehrmacht and the SS cooperated in the conquest of Eastern European “living space” [Lebensraum] and raw materials, in the systematic eradication of racial and political enemies, and in the decimation and enslavement of the Slavic peoples. By the end of the war, an estimated 25-27 million Soviet citizens had died, including many civilians. This photograph shows Soviet partisans who had been hanged to deter others from following a similar path. It was found on a fallen soldier in 1943.
WAR IN RUSSIA: HELL FOR THE PEOPLE (Source:BBC)
Stalin and Hitler were together responsible for the leitmotiv of ruthless brutality that prevailed throughout the hostilities between Russia and Germany. During the Battle of Moscow, in which 8,000 Soviet citizens were executed for perceived cowardice, the Russian armies were forced to stand their ground, despite perishingly cold conditions of 43 degrees below freezing.To prevent his soldiers deserting the front line around the capital, Stalin ordered special 'blocking detachments' to shoot all deserters. The Soviet leadership also instructed Soviet partisans operating in the countryside to kill anyone whom they believed was disloyal. This resulted in an effective carte blanche for partisans to abuse their power and extract whatever they wanted from helpless villagers.A report from one partisan division shows that rape, killings and beatings were commonplace. To make villagers' lives still more hellish, in some areas, particularly the occupied Ukraine, nationalist partisans (as opposed to Soviet partisans), who were bent on freedom from the Soviet regime, also started up their own brutal operations in the countryside. Villagers were now faced with violence from three different fighting forces.Russians did not suffer only from their own side. Nazi rule over the territories they captured from Russia was draconian. Erich Koch, Reich Commissar of occupied Ukraine stated that the 'lowliest German worker is a thousand times more valuable' than the entire population of the Ukraine. Starvation was widespread, with Soviet civilians forced to eat dogs - until the dog supply ran out and people were forced to turn to rats, crows and birch bark. In the Ukrainian town of Kharkov, which was administered by the German army, 100,000 people died of starvation and disease.The German army, faced with an ever growing partisan threat, became increasingly comprehensive in their view about what constituted a partisan. One army document lists 1,900 partisans and their 'helpers', killed by the Germans in one action. But only 30 rifles and a handful of other weapons were found with them - more than 90% of those killed by the Germans had no guns.And yet people still managed to survive. Inna Gavrilchenko tells how lucky she was to get a job in a slaughter house during the occupation of Kharkov. It gave her access to blood, which she smuggled out and cooked into a 'blood omelette'.
A German soldier after the Battle for Stalingrad. January 1943. After the 6th Army surrendered at Stalingrad on January 31 and February 2, 1943, its surviving members were taken into captivity. The battle for Stalingrad had lasted from August 1942 until February 2, 1943. After months of heavy fighting with neither sufficient supplies nor suitable equipment, and under extremely harsh climate conditions, most surviving soldiers more or less looked like the soldier here: ravaged by injury, hunger, and cold.
Februrary, 1943. The defeated German Sixth Army of Paulus. According to the most recent research, however, it can be assumed that about 100,000 German soldiers were captured at Stalingrad; only about 6,000 of them returned home after the war.
The Atlantic Wall.To prevent an Allied invasion of what Hitler called “fortress Europe,” the Organization Todt (OT) began construction in the summer of 1942 on a 1,600 mile-long defensive fortification along the Atlantic coast. Upon completion, this fortification (which was referred to as the “Atlantic Wall” [Atlantikwall] in Nazi propaganda) was to stretch from the Netherlands to the Spanish border. Its completion, originally scheduled for May 1943, was delayed by shortages in building materials. By the time the Allies invaded Normandy on June 6, 1944, only a small section of it had been finished.
A Russian village burns, January 1944. On February 14, 1943, after the Germans experienced a devastating defeat on the Eastern Front, Hitler ordered his retreating army to leave nothing but “scorched earth” behind them – the idea being that this would slow the Red Army’s advance. But it did not slow down the Russian advance.
Source: DGDB
Shiney Ahuja may not be a saint but he is not a rapist either, the actor's lawyer said pleading for bail.
Arguing before Bombay High Court, after sessions court rejected Shiney's bail plea in the rape case, his lawyer said that evidence indicated a consensual sexual intercourse between the actor and the victim.
"I (Shiney) am not a saint in a sense, but not a rapist," said advocate Shirish Gupte, representing Shiney.
Shiney was arrested by police on June 15, after his domestic maid alleged rape. Since then he is in custody, and the lower court is set to frame charges in the case.
Gupte argued that medical and other evidence suggested that intercourse was entirely with the girl's consent. Gupte said that there were no injuries on the girl's body nor were there any signs of damage on her clothes, to suggest use of force.
Also, no body fluids were found on her clothes, he pointed out. The girl's 'pattern of behaviour' shows that she was the consenting party, Shiney's lawyer argued.
"She was habituated to this (intercourse)", he alleged, saying that "she had history of closeness to men".
Gupte said that as per medical reports, there were no injuries on Shiney's body, barring one between two fingers of hand. "It could be love-bites... or she clutched his hand very hard," he said, adding that had the girl resisted, she could have scratched Shiney's face, or upper body, and face.
Gupte also alleged that on the night before the incident, the girl had called Shiney's house 10 times from her cell phone.
The girl had told the police that on June 13, a day before the incident, Shiney had touched her in a wrong way when she had clambered on a basin to turn on overhead water tank, and she had chided him for that.
She did not tell this to other maidservants or to anybody else, Gupte pointed out.
Even in the statement recorded before magistrate, the girl used the word 'atyachar' (atrocity) and did not mention rape," he argued, adding that medical report too does not say there was intercourse.
Gupte also mentioned that though the victim's vaginal swab was taken for examination, medical report talks about 'slide', and not a swab.
Refuting the lower court's observation that Shiney was an 'influential person', and he may pressurise victim if released on bail, Gupte said, "He is not on the high pedestal of acting. He is a small-time actor."
Argument will continue before Justice A P Deshpande tomorrow
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There is also Kareena Kapoor, who is nobody’s fool, and that also everybody knows. But what is just coming out is that the film has three kisses as well that Hirani was not keen to publicise until the film’s launch date. All three kisses are between Aamir and Kareena, naturally.
Aamir, incidentally, famously kissed Kareena’s elder sister Karisma Kapoor in Dharmesh Darshan’s 1996 film Raja Hindustani - a kiss that still holds the record for being one of the most passionate in Bollywood history. And for which, Aamir and Karisma had reportedly done umpteen rehearsals.
The actor continues to be a perfectionist with exacting standards. For a scene in 3 Idiots where Kareena blows him a kiss, they apparently did 14 retakes. That was Kiss No. 1. Aamir improvised then and got Bebo to kiss him on the cheek next. And that was Kiss No. 2. But it’s Kiss No. 3 between the two superstars in the climax of the film over which the buzz has already begun. It’s said to be a proper lip-to-lip kiss.
Aamir and Kareena have a history of near misses. They were to do Mani Ratnam’s Lajjo, a film that had a strong physicality to it, which got shelved. Then Vishal Bharadwaj’s Mr Singh & Mrs Mehta, whose original heroine was Rani Mukerji, but Rani reportedly walked out when she heard there was a kiss involved because she had already got flak for kissing Kamal Haasan earlier in He Ram! That’s when Kareena stepped in... but again, Vishal’s film too didn’t take off. Finally, Aamir and Bebo have got together for 3 Idiots. Happily, the kiss has continued to follow them.
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In a few days from now, BLUE would be there for everyone to see. Touted to be India's first underwater film which would actually go on to match international standards of film making, BLUE promises to bring with it some never seen before visuals and stunts. Considering the fact that Akshay Kumar, the antagonist of the film, has been known for breaking the barriers when it comes to action flicks, what was his reaction when Anthony D'Souza a.k.a. Tony first came to him with the idea of BLUE?
''The first thing I did was watch straight into his eyes and ask him - 'Do you actually think you are capable enough of making a film of this scale, genre and setting? You may say that you want to shoot the film in space or on the moon but kehna alag hai aur karna alag! So how will you actually shoot the film?' - reveals Akshay.
As things turned out, Tony had done his homework well in advance and showed some of his work from the past which included certain advertisements he had directed as well as some groundwork on BLUE.
''Honestly, it all led me to at least started lending an ear to him'', confesses Akshay, ''I became further and further immersed into knowing how he was going to execute BLUE. After all there were also going to be extreme stunts in it and that too under water. Then Tony also showed me the work of the DOP. He is the same guy who has also shot PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN. He even made me talk to him and once I did that, I was quite satisfied that at least Tony had his heart in the right place and he had done his homework well.''
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Bollywood star Salman Khan went out of his way and gifted a branded bag worth Rs.250,000 to his 'Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna' co-star Kareena Kapoor.
Kareena and Salman went shopping together in Australia while they were shooting for the film and the young actress fell for a Dolce and Gabbana handbag.
'Kareena would usually land up shopping in the evenings after the shoot in Australia. She would go alone. But on one occasion, Salman accompanied her too,' said a unit source.
'She instantly liked a Dolce and Gabbana bag, stepped in and bought it. When she was about to pay the storekeeper refused to take the money saying it had already been paid for. Kareena stood zapped and wondered who could be that generous soul. It was only later that she got to know that it was Salman who had paid,' the source added.
The two actors plays main leads in Prem Soni's directorial debut 'Main Aurr Mrs.Khanna'. Sohail Khan, who has co-produced the movie with UTV SpotBoy Pictures, is also starring in it.
The film is scheduled for release Oct 16.
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WAKE UP SID, directed by debutante Ayan Mukerji, is like revisiting those years that lay at some remote corner of your mind, after you moved on in life.
Actually, WAKE UP SID is a slice of life film. It's not merely real in concept, but has also been told most realistically, so much so that you can't help but draw parallels with your life or with someone you know. But what really makes WAKE UP SID most believable is Ranbir Kapoor, who's mastered the craft at such a young age.
Verdict? WAKE UP SID mirrors those years with flourish. This one's a simple story that strikes a chord instantly. Strongly recommended!
WAKE UP SID tells the story of Siddharth aka Sid [Ranbir Kapoor], a lazy, unmotivated slacker from Mumbai whose life undergoes a series of changes after taking his final year college exams. Sid's world is breezy, carefree and without any true responsibilities.
Aisha Bannerjee [Konkona Sen Sharma], an aspiring writer from Kolkata, learns this soon enough when her path crosses with Sid's on her first day in Mumbai. Ambitious, well-read and driven, Aisha has come to Mumbai to realize her dreams as a writer. Despite their contrasting personalities, Sid becomes Aisha's first friend in the city.
As Aisha sets up her life in Mumbai, with the help of Sid and his gang, Sid allows for time to fly by over long drives, parties that stretch well into dawn, and endless hours doing absolutely nothing. But a series of circumstances and events compel him to take stock of his life and take a hard look at himself.
Let's not compare WAKE UP SID with anything you've watched before. Not DIL CHAHTA HAI. Not LAKSHYA either. Debutante director Ayan Mukerji narrates a story that you can relate to instantly and treats it with utmost care. A few moments linger in your memory and evoke bitter-sweet memories.
The first hour, right till the intermission, sweeps you off your feet. You get drawn into Sid's world instantaneously; you react to everything he does. But the post-interval portions slackens, courtesy the writing. The Rahul Khanna track, for instance, looks half-baked. Also, the story stagnates after a point and hence, the pacing gets very slow. It's only towards the finale that things perk up. Ideally, the film could've done with some trimming in this hour.
Ayan Mukerji packs in a solid punch in most parts of the film. The emotional moments especially gets you all moist-eyed. The humour too is well integrated in the sequences. Even the confrontation between the father and son is superb. Prior to that Konkona's birthday sequence is amongst the finest sequences of the film. Music [Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy] is melodious. Anil Mehta's cinematography is top notch. Niranjan Iyengar's dialogues are just right.
Konkona is natural to the core and the best part is, she's so effortless. Here's another winning performance from this incredible performer. Anupam Kher is wonderful. Ditto for Supriya Pathak. Both shine in their respective parts. Namit Das and Shikha Talsania are perfect. Rahul Khanna doesn't get any scope.
On the whole, WAKE UP SID is a well-made film that should strike a chord with the youth mainly. A metro-centric film, the film should attract its target audience and should also prove to be the first choice of the elite/urban audience this Friday. Its distributors [UTV] have very rightly released the film at plexes of metros and mini-metros [instead of flooding the market with physical and digital prints], which in turn should only make this small film talked-about in days to come. Thumbs Up!
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Thursday, October 1, 2009
Nut-Free, Egg-Free and Dairy-Free: The Food Allergy Mama Baking Cookbook
0 comments Posted by org at 8:59 AMI just wanted to give a shout out today to Kelly, aka Food Allergy Mama, on the October 1 release of her new nut-free, egg-free and dairy-free baking cookbook. You can read all about here, including how to order a signed copy of this fabulous book!
I met Kelly (a fellow Chicago area allergy mom!) at the FAAN conference last spring and I couldn't be happier for her. What a great resource for food allergy mamas everywhere, not to mention a great resource for family members and friends.
It can be really difficult to come up with delicious baked treats that don't contain milk, eggs or nuts so The Food Allergy Mama Baking Cookbook is a such a welcome resource. I'm glad it's on the shelves today!
Congrats to Kelly! I ordered my copy and am looking forward to some delicious baking. Visit her site Food Allergy Mama for more info.
